How Smart Are Animals?

Why did Andrea Anderson need help from Villa, the Newfoundland dog, in “How Smart Are Animals?”

• She got lost on her way home.

• She twisted her ankle and could not walk

• She was blown into a snowdrift during a blizzard.

• She wanted to study dogs to determine how intelligent they are.

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According to “How Smart Are Animals?” what was a common attitude toward animal intelligence up to the 1960s?

• Some species were thought to be smarter than others.

• Animals were thought to act on instinct, without any ability to think.

• Scientists thought that understanding animal intelligence would be an impossible task.

• The mental abilities of animals were thought to be similar to those of human beings.

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What is the “Clever Hans phenomenon” described in “How Smart Are Animals?”

• a situation that demonstrates why scientists cannot be fooled

• a study that demonstrates the intelligence of animals through a series of tests

• an incident in which an animal uses its problem-solving skills to help a human

• an experiment in which an animal seems intelligent but is merely responding to cues

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In “How Smart Are Animals?” C. G. Beer’s experiment on the “long calls” of laughing gulls proves which of the following ideas?

• Scientists can easily interpret animal communication.

• Birds communicate in a way that is similar to human speech.

• Laughing gulls make signals that are the same for each bird on all occasions.

• There are differences in the calls of birds that are hard for a human to notice.

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Match the following

• determining its meaning

• When something is considered MEASURABLE, what does that mean?

• watching carefully

• When a reader EVALUATES a situation properly, what is he doing ?

• considering and judging it thoroughly.

• When someone is OBSERVING something, what are they doing?

• ABLE TO DETERMINE SIZE OR QUANTITY

• Which of the following is the best description of a PHENOMENON?

• a rare and interesting event

• When a reader INTERPRETS a story, what is she doing?

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Read the following quotation from "How Smart Are Animals?"

"It is easy to confuse trainability with thinking. But just because an animal can learn to perform a trick doesn't mean that it knows what it is doing".

Based on this quotation, choose the example that the author would agree shows intelligence most clearly.

• An animal learns to find its way through a maze.

• An animal learns a faster way through a maze it has already mastered.

• An animal finds its way through a maze that is more complicated than the mazes it has already learned.

• An animal decides that it wants to work on matching shapes as well as on solving mazes

Answer Part A first, and then Part B.

Part A: According to “How Smart Are Animals?” what is one important reason that it is difficult to compare the intelligence of one animal species to another?

• Most animal species do not use tools.

• Some animal species may be lazier than others.

• Different animal species may not speak the same language.

• Different animal species may not be physically equipped to take the same tests.

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Part B: Which quotation from “How Smart Are Animals?” most clearly supports the answer that Different animal species may not be physically equipped to take the same tests.

• More advanced signs of intelligence are tool manufacture and use, symbolic communication, and ability to form mental concepts.

• When an animal can’t perform well, we don’t know if it really cannot solve the problems put to it or if it just doesn’t want to.

• Animals are just too varied in their physical makeup and in their life styles.

• Variations of “intelligence” from one individual to the next can significantly affect the results.

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The following question has two parts.

Part A: Which statement would the author of "How Smart Are Animals?" most likely agree with?

• Intelligence always involves using symbols, such as words.

• An animal that does well on a test must be intelligent.

• An animal that is hard to train cannot be intelligent.

• What counts as intelligence depends on what is important to an animal.

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The following question has two parts.

Part B Which quotation from “How Smart Are Animals?” most clearly supports that what counts as intelligence depends on what is important to an animal.

• Animals that are easy to train may also be very intelligent. Some of the most trainable creatures, such as dolphins, are also the most likely candidates for genuine animal thinking.

• We can’t hand [animals] a pencil and paper and give them a test, and we can’t ask them what they’re thinking.

• Since the lives of animals are so different from ours, we can’t apply human standards to them. We must develop different ideas of what animal intelligence might be.

• More advanced signs of intelligence are tool manufacture and use, symbolic communication, and ability to form mental concepts.

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